Why does my sugar drop during the day

I am still trying to figure things out for myself and so now that I am in the habit of testing every day when I get up, I am adding pre lunch and or dinner testing and have found it very intersting that my sugar levels tend to drop during the day. Then when I get up in the morning they are elevated. Why is this happening? I try to be very careful about carb intake for my evening meal and evening snak. It just puzzles me so. Does anyone have any thoughts?Thanks for your input

30 replies

This happens to me I've noticed patterns, especially when I am active cleaning my house. I go back back and forth, up and down stairs and boom gotta have snacks! When I'm at work I'm busy, but not as much walking takes place, so definitely what you're doing makes a big difference! Lows for me seem inevitable! Good Luck!

Wow, you dug up an oldie goldie here. I am not on insulin, but what happens with me is that as my day gets going and my activity level increases, my levels drop as the day goes on. So if I can start at a lower A.M. number I do better during the day. Otherwise, I am spending all day trying to get lower.

One reason your sugar levels could be dropping is prabably because you are more active during the day. Think about it are you cleaning you house and running erands are you constantly on your feet? If you are then you are exercising. Just by doing your daily chores you are taking care of your body. You should keep on doing that and you will see that you break out in a sweat. And the more you sweat you burn out the carbs you take in.

I have the same problem. The morning thing is called predawn syndrom. For that, i was told to eat some protien type snack like crackers and cheese or peanut butter crakcers with milk before retiring for the night. During the day, my sugars also fall, but i know when they are going to fall. So I set my meals and snack times around the time my sugar drops. Not everyone has that luxury.

Gabby, it all depends on what the numbers are. Is your glucose reading very high in the morning? Do you take insulin accordingly or at all? How much lower are they during the day? Are they still in the "safe" or "normal" range? You sugar goes down with exercise, even regular exercise, like when I worked, just getting up from my desk and do filing or go to another department, it would bring my sugar down. Walking to and from my car, or from the house to the mail box, would take my sugar down some. So how down does it go?I usually took my sugar in the morning and did not test any more during the day, but I just started to test before every meal, and I find it very helpful to keep me on track. If my sugar is high before lunch and it's at least 3 hours after breakfast, then I know not to eat a lot of protein and certainly no sugar. The same applies for dinner. Unless my sugar is below 100 before going to bed, I don't have a snack. If the number is 80 or less, then I'm afraid it will go too low while I sleep and I'll have some crackers with a glass of milk before going to bed. I wouldn't want to have a sugar low during the night.

So what are your numbers? Are they high in the morning and too low during the day? Are you eating properly, Are you doing a lot of exercise (even normal moving around)? Those are the questions you have to ask before modifying your meds.

What I mean is this. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is test my bs, take my insulin and my pills. Then I have breakfast. By then it's about 8:30 or 9:00. By the time lunch time comes around I test to see what my bs is and if it's high, like now, (it's now 11:56 and I just tested to find out that my BS is 305) I know that my lunch has to be very lean. This morning my sugar was 102 and I was elated. I took my 30 units of insulin and all my pills, I had 2 toasts with whole grain bread with a tbsp of butter on them and no-sugar jam. Yet my sugar is high now. I certainly cannot eat meat, fat, carbs, or sugar (all of these would increase my bs). So I'll opt for a salad with lemon juice as vinegrette and absolutely no carbs, fat, protein, fat or sugar. I hope I gave you a satisfying answer.

It sounds like you may have got a few misconceptions about how eating and blood sugar are connected and your lunch is probably going to make things worse rather than better. Fat and protein will actually help keep your blood sugar stable as well as lower the peak you get after eating. If it were me I would add some carb to the salad, some oil and vinegar to the lemon juice and slap a grilled chicken breast on top of it all. I've tried the eating a salad when blood sugar is high and it doesn't work. When I was first diagnosed I would try that and found that actually eating a balanced meal that included carbs my numbers would be around 100 points lower than if I ate like you plan to. Now it's not so noticeable but if I skip fat and protein at breakfast my numbers are normally 30-40 points higher than when I don't. Your breakfast was almost 100% carbs and if I ate it I would certainly spike over 200, I haven't seen 200 on my meter for a while. Your lunch is almost nothing. It wont give your body the fuel it needs for the day unless you are sleeping.

Numbers going over 300 is a serious cause for concern and I would be calling my doctor to get some advice on what to do. That's up to you though. I think it would also help if you did some research into food, blood sugar and metabolism and how they all work together to either regulate blood sugar or cause wild swings.

Unfortunately, I am running high all the time, but my numbers are dropping. I am self diagnosed and not on medication, so I know it is not that which is causing it to drop. I am happy that it is lower during the day, (still in the 180's), but it is better than the 300's I was at when I first tested back in March of 2008.
It just surprised me when I started testing during the day, that my numbers would be lower...I suppose it is that I do walk and try to do some activitiy. I need to be more disciplined in that, but I am working into it. Of course it is always better when I have a raw meal like salads, but it seemed weird that it would drop as I added food to my day, instead of going up some.

Carbs will raise it but activity (and other things) will lower it. I would say that it's a very bad idea to self diagnose (mainly because you are not using accurate testing) and an even worse idea to 'self medicate.' High blood sugar is just a symptom of diabetes so without the proper tests you can potentially end up in real trouble. A good number of people get diagnosed in the ER because of their diabetes and a reasonable percentage of those are close to death.

I don't mean to be preachy because I'm not perfect and I don't want to be rude but it's obvious from your postings that you don't really understand what diabetes is, how to manage it or how to use the blood sugar readings you get. Reading stuff online is one thing, but you need the foundation of a doctor to bounce things off and to get education from. I don't know your situation so I may be way off but if money is the issue, it's a totally false economy to not pay out of pocket for a regular doctors visit because sooner or later you will end up with problems that will cost hundreds of times more than 4 visits a year.

I don't mind a little preachy. My mom has type 2 and she lives with me, so we are working together on it. I know I have to go to visit the Dr. but in the middle of financial crisis right now, and we are loosing everything, so I just am doing what I can until I get to my regular doc. I like him a lot and he is very helpful, I just need my blood tests done and to see him. I am not very keen on meds. When I read how so many here struggle to keep on a med that actually helps it is a little scarry. I keep a food diary and keep track of what I am doing. That is why I found it weird that when I ate breakfast, and then checked before lunch, my numbers were lower, not gaining. Not that I am complaining...I am still at a point where anything lower is cause for celebration. Thanks for the help

Hi Gabby U say u take supplements to help with your sugar.I like taking supplements also and find it to be helpful in lowering my sugars. What supplements do u take .I take suplement Cinnamon,ALA,Gynema Slvestre.Plus I take meds,Januvia and Metformin. My A1C is 6.1

OH...my list is growing day by day. I think I am settled now for a while and I will see how I improve.
I have been chatting (more like writing a book) with Ryan on the site. He is an herbal guru. Phenominal insight and first hand experience. This reflects some of the changes he suggested I consider.
Daily doses, usually spread out over 3 meals:

There are a lot that are included in multi's like Magnesium, Zinc, Manganese, Ginko, thiamin, Riboflavin....you know. I try not to exceed the RDA of vitamins because more is not always better.
What I am missing that I still need to add is CoQ-10, but it is VERY expensive. It has been recommended to me to use 400mg a day for two weeks, and then 100mg after that.

I also drink 2-4oz of Aloe Vera Juice every morning with vinegar for my joints and energy.

Sounds like a Pharmacy!! Sheesh. Yep, but they seem to be helping so I am happy. I just upped my Bitter Melon this week and added the Banba Leaf, so it will be interesting to see if they help. What Ryan explained to me is that most of the herbs we take are in such small doses, they don't do much. I had him look over my list and he gave me some great advice.

NOW a word of caution. I do not take any meds, so I don't have interaction issues. Before you add anything, please talk to your pharmasist (or doctor, but the pharmasisit will know more)
I hope that helps.

So what are your numbers? Are they high in the morning and too low during the
day? Are you eating properly, Are you doing a lot of exercise (even normal
moving around)? Those are the questions you have to ask before modifying your
meds.

I am not on meds so adjusting that is not an issue. My numbers are in the low 200's in the AM. I have them down to about 200 even. I test now the same (or close to)time in the morning to get my start. I have also been testing before and after meals to see what is happening. That has helped me a lot. I see that my AM reading is lower than my after dinner test, so that is good.
When I posted this over a month ago, my levels were much higher. I would start at 260-280 and go down from there. Now I have amped up my exercise, I am taking some new supplements, drinking 4 oz. of red wine with dinner, and staying on my menu routine. I am very pleased. My weekly average went from 246 (when I posted this discussion) to 214 this past week. So they are going steadly down. I do believe that I have the dawn phenomenon, and testing the same time daily in the morning has made that number steady.

I still am unable to determine wny my levels go so extremely low, without warning, right before lunch (if I'm not careful to eat a snack, will wind up with a blood sugar level in the 30's). Even with a snack this still happens on occasion - no change in activity level.

Do you take medication? If so what? That sounds like classic glyburide or maybe NPH action to me but that's just a guess. There could be a few different reasons for dropping during the day and waking up high and they have different solutions. One other thing that could be helpful is testing immediately after reasonable physical activity since the number you get after that can help determine how your stress hormones act which can also help indicate what will happen when you wake up and after you eat breakfast.

As far as the elevated morning glucose, it could be the Dawn Phenomenon that is occurring. It is the bodies natural "course" in the am to help you wake up. The body releases stored glucose in a sense, you can look it up on the web for more info.

As far as the lower glucose in the afternoon, it may be your body letting you know you need some more nutrients. Since us Diabetics are always so careful about carb intake as it raises the glucose levels, try a protein snack after lunch, a mid afternoon before dinner snack. Protein seems to sustain your glucose level longer and better than carbs.

I did some research on the Dawn Phenomenon...very intersting. I think that I see my trouble here. My mom, who is on meds, eats a little carb at night to prevent her sugar rise in the AM. So I was doing the same..now I see maybe no snack or a protine snack might be better. Thanks for the advice. I think it will help.

I'm not sure. mine drops at night. It has dropped as low as 45.my energy level bottoms out so bad, it takes a couple of days for me to get to feeeling better.I'm trying to keep a check on whats going in when this happens. good luck

I have been experimenting with supplements that seem to have helped a great deal. I take them in the morning with my meal and then at night another set with that meal. That seems to be getting my numbers in a better direction. I don't want a 45 but I would love to be under 150...my numbers are very high, even though I have cut them by about 1/3.

My sugar also drops during the day.I ask my dr & she said I need a lower dose of meds..My guess would be because when Your most active sugar tends to drop..Keep track of what You eat & report this to your Dr..John